Making the Best, continued
Dec. 30th, 2005 12:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
avevale_intelligencerI just stood there as the full horror slowly sank in.
I'd never bought into the whole "pride is bad" powerlessness trip. I mean, yes, pride can lead to abuse of power, but it doesn't have to. I'd even been a bit smug when I'd seen Yeesha's message on the imager on Myst. I'd expected to find a sort of stagnant mediaeval farming community, maybe regressed to primitive pantheism, that I could sneer at from my lofty technological superiority and secretly envy when I went back to my world of traffic and pollution and nine-to-five grind. This was so much worse than I had imagined.
I'd been right.
And it hurt. Oh gods, how it hurt.
Yeesha was watching me keenly. I had to say something.
"Surely," I stammered, "surely there must have been some resistance--"
She chuckled dryly. "Oh, there was. There was a great deal of resistance. And I met it and broke it. You did not see me then. I was a fire, I was a wind, I was a desert bird speaking with the tongues of men and of angels. I knew, you see, that the Maker was speaking through me. My words were his words, my goal his goal. Have you never known people follow a madman to their deaths because they believed?"
I thought of Jonestown, and that comet cult.
"I made them see," the old woman went on, "that all their objections arose from pride and greed. I made them give back everything they had, everything that made them D'ni. I made them glory in ignorance, in helplessness, because all knowledge was a source of pride. I could not stop. I was so sure--" She coughed again, for what seemed like about an hour, but probably wasn't.
"Wait a minute," I said suddenly. "What about you? He can't be the last if you're still--"
She cut me off. "I died over a hundred years ago. I came forward." Her smile was as cold as death. "I wanted to see the paradise I had wrought. I have no desire to go back. Not now."
"What can I do?" I asked, meaning it.
"Undo what I have done. This branch of the Tree is dead. It will never bloom again. My people must be the living sap that sustains a new branch. The water flows ever downward, but the sap must rise. You must go back, and make that happen."
She was asking me to go back and argue with her younger self. Make a new future that she, the Yeesha before me, would never see.
"How am I going to persuade her--I mean, you?" I said. "I'm more likely to end up joining the cause myself. She'll never believe me."
The smile was warmer this time, but still chilly. "Likely she will not. She will assume that you speak out of pride and greed, that you desire the D'ni's secrets for yourself. As of course you do."
She had me there.
"After all," she went on, "I played upon that greed and pride when I called you all to the Cleft, did I not?"
She was interrupted by the man on the floor. His eyes had tracked slowly to her face, and now he opened his mouth, still full of half-chewed grass, and stretched out a hand.
"Eeeeeee," he said. "Aaaaaaa. Eeeee. Aaaaa. EEE-aaa."
Yeesha ignored him, but her old eyes were filling up as she went on. "But you must try. You must do everything in your power to turn me from the disastrous course I have chosen."
"And if I can't?" I said, knowing somehow what was coming.
"If there is no other way," she said, barely above a whisper, "then do not condemn me to live the wasted life I have lived. Rid me of it, and the world of me, before I destroy my people again."
I'd never bought into the whole "pride is bad" powerlessness trip. I mean, yes, pride can lead to abuse of power, but it doesn't have to. I'd even been a bit smug when I'd seen Yeesha's message on the imager on Myst. I'd expected to find a sort of stagnant mediaeval farming community, maybe regressed to primitive pantheism, that I could sneer at from my lofty technological superiority and secretly envy when I went back to my world of traffic and pollution and nine-to-five grind. This was so much worse than I had imagined.
I'd been right.
And it hurt. Oh gods, how it hurt.
Yeesha was watching me keenly. I had to say something.
"Surely," I stammered, "surely there must have been some resistance--"
She chuckled dryly. "Oh, there was. There was a great deal of resistance. And I met it and broke it. You did not see me then. I was a fire, I was a wind, I was a desert bird speaking with the tongues of men and of angels. I knew, you see, that the Maker was speaking through me. My words were his words, my goal his goal. Have you never known people follow a madman to their deaths because they believed?"
I thought of Jonestown, and that comet cult.
"I made them see," the old woman went on, "that all their objections arose from pride and greed. I made them give back everything they had, everything that made them D'ni. I made them glory in ignorance, in helplessness, because all knowledge was a source of pride. I could not stop. I was so sure--" She coughed again, for what seemed like about an hour, but probably wasn't.
"Wait a minute," I said suddenly. "What about you? He can't be the last if you're still--"
She cut me off. "I died over a hundred years ago. I came forward." Her smile was as cold as death. "I wanted to see the paradise I had wrought. I have no desire to go back. Not now."
"What can I do?" I asked, meaning it.
"Undo what I have done. This branch of the Tree is dead. It will never bloom again. My people must be the living sap that sustains a new branch. The water flows ever downward, but the sap must rise. You must go back, and make that happen."
She was asking me to go back and argue with her younger self. Make a new future that she, the Yeesha before me, would never see.
"How am I going to persuade her--I mean, you?" I said. "I'm more likely to end up joining the cause myself. She'll never believe me."
The smile was warmer this time, but still chilly. "Likely she will not. She will assume that you speak out of pride and greed, that you desire the D'ni's secrets for yourself. As of course you do."
She had me there.
"After all," she went on, "I played upon that greed and pride when I called you all to the Cleft, did I not?"
She was interrupted by the man on the floor. His eyes had tracked slowly to her face, and now he opened his mouth, still full of half-chewed grass, and stretched out a hand.
"Eeeeeee," he said. "Aaaaaaa. Eeeee. Aaaaa. EEE-aaa."
Yeesha ignored him, but her old eyes were filling up as she went on. "But you must try. You must do everything in your power to turn me from the disastrous course I have chosen."
"And if I can't?" I said, knowing somehow what was coming.
"If there is no other way," she said, barely above a whisper, "then do not condemn me to live the wasted life I have lived. Rid me of it, and the world of me, before I destroy my people again."